The Home Shopping Network is a 24/7 ad for various useless crap. But is one single nonstop layer of ads enough, for consumers to learn about various pieces of crap? Or maybe could they put some ads in those ads?

Now HSN has product placement! I could not even comprehend what that meant but apparently it means that, while an HSN host is talking about how great some piece of crap pan or whatever is for boiling up some pasta, he just casually says "Oh and by the way, speaking of boiling up some pasta in this fabulous pan (call now!), a good kind of pasta you can boil in it is Barilla pasta, which is some really nice pasta." And what do you know, he didn't just say that off the top of his head—he was paid for it, by Barilla pasta. Cunning.

But wait, will the average American viewer who enjoys staring slack-jawed at smiling salespersons on HSN for hours on end stand for ads being inserted into their hitherto pristine programming segments? "HSN doesn't foresee a problem." Okay then, good.[WSJ. Pic via]